Secondary Products of your Craft

The first product of your craft is an almost mystical kind of experience. Sorta whatnot and hard to describe. Its something that you know but don't really per se precisely wanna put things in terms that you may not want to really describe or be misunderstood by someone about.

It's marmalade.

What does that mean? It meant something to someone once. I think I understood, and I certainly heard the sentiment. I say that the first, the real, product of the craft of DnD is the shared vision of the players. Their consensus of what is happening - their ability to generate concepts into the world of the Conductor and have those contributions become primary themes of the story that is created.

As a Dungeon Conductor you create a story from the players elements. There is a strong similarity to Improv Theater. Particularly improv theater that calls for elements from the audience to focus their jokes on. Also DnD playing is different from Improvisational Action in that playing DnD is part of the product. Watching it is something that only a real nerd would want to do. Were you to have professional actors playing DnD that would be worth watching ... but -that- would be a secondary product.

Improve acting is done for an audience. No matter how fun or exhilarating the performance is for the actor it is still work performed for others. Playing DnD is a fun activity. There is a larger similarity to Religious Sermons than there is to Improv Acting in that the Conductor / Master person is performing for a small audience. In many games there is a significant similarity to a dice, card, or other gambling table. The Conductor standing in the place of the Deck Dealer or Money Changer. A stand up comedy style performance is also very similar.

To a certain extent the primary, secondary, product of DnD is the vocal performance of one trained performer combined with a number of untrained voices. That is simply the good that comes out of the popular performance of DnD. Were we to be recording the majority of sessions what we would have right now, and only more so going into the future, is a collection of vocal performances and character sketches. Maps and graphics are often produced as well, but are not truly integral to the best performances of DnD.

Conducting involves paying close attention to the many player elements- that is the primary action. Several players create a dynamic environment that the Dungeon Conductor must maintain and respond too. Therein it differs from Improv acting again in that the players rarely take up the entirety of the characters on the conceptual stage. The director of an immprovisational performance has at most a part in the actual performance of the play, while the Dungeon Conductor (Be they a Dungeon Crafter or simply the Chamber Narrator) is the focal point of the performance of DnD.

Imrpov Acting, Religious Sermons, and Stand-Up share audience sizes. The audience of the DnD is the players themselves. There is no way that the players should ever be considered to be not playing unless they are literally not playing at all and are ordering pizza or having a fist fight with someone for real. So long as they are participating in "the game" the players are intended to not fail or lose in any way at any point. Death and all consequences of fate are entierly in the hands of the "Game Master" which is simply a terrible vocal catastrophy - Gamaster ... Gameaster, Gamster? Gleemax - I liked Glee Master, but what is Glee really? An improve actor may be considered to have failed their performance by many, but there is no "many" for DnD.

The player is the "many" and if you are not playing then you don't have a say as to whether the Conductor is doing well or not. Were the performance of the players to be "cool" or "sick" or "rad" or "wow" or something - then that makes a fine Secondary Product of DnD.